Chapter 7 #2
Annalee was impressed by the beautiful old brick and stone city building they drove up to.
“It used to be a bank,” Hawk explained as he drove into the parking garage. The attendant waved him through without stopping him. He waved back and grabbed the first available parking spot.
He had to swipe his employee badge to let them in through the back entrance.
A rugged cowboy in jeans, boots, and a Stetson was waiting for them. He beckoned them to follow him into a small conference room. “I’m Tucker Pratt, by the way,” he tossed over his shoulder, giving Annalee’s yellow hoodie and cutoff jean shorts an appreciative look that had Hawk bristling.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Annalee Gilbert.” She wished she’d thought to change into jeans before taking off, but it was too late for that. She waved her hands at the maze of electronic equipment piled on the conference table. “Thanks for going to all of this trouble for us.”
“My pleasure.” Tucker grinned at her.
Hawk stepped between them to hold out a chair for her. “You ready for what comes next?”
She found the question endearing. “No, but I’m ready to get it over with. Close enough, right?”
“Then let’s do this.” He turned a chair beside hers around to straddle it. Then he gestured at Tucker. “You’re up.”
Though Tucker had been fiddling with his equipment, Annalee sensed he’d been watching them closely. No doubt he was trying to figure out her relationship with Hawk. She was secretly delighted that Hawk wasn’t making any effort to keep his interest in her a secret.
“What’s the number?” Tucker finally asked.
She rattled off Miley’s old phone number. “It’s probably best if I do the talking.” She looked at Hawk for confirmation, and he nodded.
“If your imposter picks up, she won’t even know we’re in the room,” he promised.
Tucker fiddled with the equipment some more. Then he dialed the number.
It rang a few times.
Annalee’s lips turned down in disappointment. Oh, well. It had been worth a try.
The phone stopped ringing, and a woman’s voice rang shrilly across the conference room. “It took you long enough to reach out.”
You were expecting me? Annalee’s heart thudded with trepidation. “Why do you have my daughter’s cell phone?” It wasn’t one of the questions she’d rehearsed. It had simply slipped out.
“It’s mine now.” There were some rustling noises in the background. “She left it behind after she pulled that window breaking stunt.”
Annalee gasped in outrage. “She had no choice! You were burning the house down.”
The woman talked over her as if she hadn’t heard her. “It’s expensive paying for an extra phone number.” She sounded indignant, as if she was the victim instead of the offender.
Not for the first time, Annalee wondered what kind of loony tune she was dealing with. “Who are you?” she asked. “And don’t bother repeating my own name to me. We both know you’re not the real Annalee Gilbert.”
The woman was silent for a moment. “You still haven’t figured it out.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “That surprises me, considering how much effort I’ve put into getting your attention.”
She was lying. She wasn’t trying to get Annalee’s attention. She was trying to kill her.
“Did you kill my husband?” Annalee hated how thready her voice became.
“That’s not a very nice thing to ask a family member.” There was a mechanical quality to her voice that Annalee remembered all too well.
Family? Annalee mouthed the word at Hawk, unsure what to say next. There was no way the creep on the other end of the phone was related to her and Miley. Only in your demented dreams!
He motioned for her to keep talking, which she could only assume meant that Tucker hadn’t yet pinpointed her imposter’s location.
She cleared her throat and tried a different tactic. “Why are you using a voice changer? What are you hiding?”
“Hiding! You think I’ve been hiding?” The woman sounded outraged. “I’ve spent most of my life locked up while you got to live like a queen in foster care.”
The fact that someone in prison had managed to find out so much about Annalee’s personal life was unnerving. “Nobody lives like a queen in foster care,” she retorted bitterly. “And nobody in their right mind would say something like that.” Her stint in foster care was the darkest spot in her life. She was trying her hardest to forget it.
“You think I’m crazy, too?” the woman spat.
And then some, you maniac! Annalee’s imposter was starting to remind her of her late husband’s stepmother. Rosamund Dakota was her own brand of lunatic, someone who was beyond being reasoned with.
“I never said you were crazy, ma’am.” Their conversation had taken such a bizarre turn that Annalee was starting to feel a little nutso herself.
“Well, somebody did,” the woman snarled, “and I paid dearly for it. But those days are behind me. Now that I’ve escaped their clutches, I’m gonna take back everything that should’ve been mine. So, if you want your life back, it’s going to cost you. You owe me, Annalee Gilbert!”
The line went dead.
“No-o-o!” Annalee dropped her head on the table in defeat. The woman hadn’t given her a single direct answer, leaving her with more questions than she’d started off with.
“Were you able to trace her location?” Hawk asked quickly.
“Nope. Sorry.” Tucker sounded regretful. “I recorded every second of it, though. We’ll analyze the feed and see if anything pops that might help us pinpoint her location.”
Annalee raised her head. “You should start by contacting all the prisons nearby.”
“And mental wards,” Hawk added soberly. “Your imposter didn’t say anything about being arrested, only about being locked up. What if she was institutionalized instead of incarcerated?”
“Now, there’s a thought!” Annalee’s eyes widened. “It still doesn’t shed any light on who she is.”
“She claims she’s family,” Tucker reminded in a cautious voice.
“She’s also been telling everyone who calls my daughter’s old number that she’s me.” Annalee wasn’t sure the case could get any more bizarre. “Miley is the only blood relative I have left.”
Tucker waved a hand vaguely. “That you know of.” He pulled his laptop closer and started typing.
She scowled at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shook his head. “I should probably apologize ahead of time for what I’m about to do.”
“Which is,” she prodded when he fell silent.
“I’m about to hack into a secure database.” He grimaced and kept typing. “Don’t worry. I’m no longer on Lonestar Security’s server, so none of this can be traced back to us. As you’re probably starting to figure out, I haven’t lived a perfect life. Some of the skill sets I’ve picked up along the way fall into what a lot of people would consider a gray area.”
As in illegal? “What database?” Annalee pressed with a worried look at Hawk.
His expression was unreadable.
“It’s best if you don’t know.” Tucker kept typing. “It gives you plausible deniability if anyone questions you about what I’m doing.” All they could hear for the next several minutes was the sound of him tapping on his keyboard.
At one point, he looked up from his work to wave a finger between Hawk and Annalee. “So, are you two together?”
Hawk tipped his chair closer to get a better look at the screen. “What gave you that idea, Sherlock?”
“I knew it!” Tucker grinned gleefully.
“Then why’d you ask?” Hawk grumbled.
“Ah! Here we go.” Tucker sat back, pointing at his computer screen with both hands. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is our gal.”
“Only ninety-nine, eh?” Hawk’s voice was dry.
“I was trying to be modest,” the P.I. snickered.
“That was quick.” Annalee wished she could tell if he was just being cocky or if he was for real. “What makes you so sure she’s the lunatic we’re looking for?”
“Whoa!” Tucker darted several glances between her and his computer screen. Pure astonishment was painted across his face. “Either someone hacked into her patient file and uploaded a photo of you, Mrs. Gilbert, or you have a double out there.”
She stared at him blankly, waiting for him to explain.
Tucker pointed at his computer screen. “Her name is Mirabelle Gilbert.”
“She has the same last name as me?” Annalee straightened in her seat. It felt like more than a coincidence. Something heavy settled in her chest.
“Yep. She’s a patient at a state hospital under a court-ordered confinement for violent behavior toward herself and others. Until a few months ago, that is. Looks like she escaped the lockdown area.”
Annalee dragged in a choking breath. “Did this happen before or after my first hit-and-run collision?”
“Before.” Tucker’s voice was grave.
Hawk stood and moved behind him to look over his shoulder. “Mirabelle Gilbert looks identical to you.” The quiet concern in his voice was unnerving. He wouldn’t joke about something so serious.
The first tendrils of real alarm crept through Annalee’s midsection. “I can’t explain that.”
Tucker’s expression danced with humor that nobody else in the room shared. “Do twins run in your family?”
Her insides grew even colder. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
His smile faded and was replaced by a look of abashed puzzlement, as if he was just then realizing that neither of his companions looked amused.
Hawk straightened and nodded encouragingly at her. “Tell him, babe.”
Feeling painfully exposed, Annalee launched haltingly into her pathetic tale. “I spent my childhood in foster care, had a kid of my own at the age of seventeen, and got adopted shortly afterward by an older couple.”
“Foster care,” Tucker repeated slowly. He turned back toward his computer screen. “What was your last name before you were adopted?”
The feeling in her chest grew heavier. “Gilbert. It didn’t change. Quite a coincidence, I know, to have the same last name as my adoptive parents.”
She wasn’t sure why she’d never questioned it before. At the time, she’d simply viewed it as one of life’s many oddities. Her world had been too full of baby bottles, diapers, and high school homework to feel anything other than gratitude about her adoption. The Gilberts had been so kind to her and Miley, treating her baby like she was their own grandchild.
Because…maybe she was?
Annalee drew a sobbing breath as new possibilities washed over her. “What if…?” She shook her head at Hawk, unable to finish the sentence.
He held her gaze as he returned to his chair and reached for her hand. “We’re gonna figure it out.” He wasn’t looking at her any differently. He still had her back.
She placed her fingers in his, adoring the way his hand curled possessively around hers. Though she greatly feared what else the investigation into her husband’s death might uncover, she took a moment to soak in Hawk’s strength.
Tucker typed on his computer some more. “Should I keep going?” He paused to meet their gazes. “In case I wasn’t clear enough earlier, what I’m doing here is strictly off the books.”
Annalee gulped, not wanting to even think about the privacy laws and other laws he was bending. However, not knowing the truth about her past was quite possibly what had gotten her husband killed. It might also be why their lives were still in danger…along with the lives of anyone she and her daughter dared to love.
Like the man sitting next to her.
She met Hawk’s gaze, trying to read his thoughts on the subject.
“We don’t have to take this any further if you don’t want to.” His voice was gentle with understanding.
“But I do,” she sighed. Oh, but I do! If it was wrong of her to say that, it wouldn’t be the first mistake she’d ever made. “I want to know…everything.”
Without any further ado, Tucker attacked his keyboard. “Then let’s keep digging.”
It took a few hours, but he was able to give her some of the answers she’d waited so long to hear — answers that chilled her to the bone.
Mirabelle Gilbert wasn’t some random crazy person who just so happened to share her last name. Mirabelle was her twin sister. They’d been separated at an early age, placed in separate foster homes, and eventually adopted by different families.
Or so the paperwork made it appear.
Tucker kept hacking and uncovering new information. Before the evening ended, he was able to paint a very different picture about Annalee’s past. A horrific picture. One that was almost too painful to bear.
Mirabelle and Annalee hadn’t been separated until the age of three. It was the point at which Mirabelle had been expelled from their daycare for injuring another child. Sadly, it was an injury that had resulted in permanent paralysis. Family Services had gotten involved and ultimately removed both sisters from their home, claiming everything from child negligence to general abuse. Their parents had gone to prison for it, where both had perished under dubious circumstances.
“Man!” Tucker’s voice was hushed. “The prison system has never been kind to folks with those kinds of convictions.”
Annalee was sick to her stomach about everything she’d learned, but one question in particular was still burning inside her. “What happened to my sister?”
Tucker waved at the computer again. “According to everything I’ve uncovered, she’s been confined to a state hospital since the age of three.”
Three! Annalee couldn’t recall ever hearing of someone so young being punished so severely or so permanently. Maybe it was justified due to her violent tendencies, but it still felt wrong. Horribly wrong.
“How did she escape?” Hawk’s calm, dispassionate voice was a reminder that they still had a lot of details to unravel concerning the case.
“Good question.” Tucker frowned as he scrolled through his findings. “After Gilbert Farm went belly up, the funds keeping her there dwindled, and she was moved to a less secure ward.”
Afterward, it had probably been no trouble for someone as diabolically clever as Mirabelle to watch and wait for the right moment to make her move.
“She was never adopted, was she?” Annalee pressed both hands to her aching heart.
“Not exactly,” Tucker said slowly. “The Gilberts, who were your biological grandparents, by the way…”
She drew a sharp breath at his verification of her other suspicions. “I wonder why they never told me.”
“There’s no telling.” He shook his head at the computer screen. “Maybe they thought they were protecting you.”
From Mirabelle. Annalee nodded in misery. The truth was so terrible that their caution was understandable.
“It took a lengthy legal battle for them to be granted guardianship over your sister,” he continued. “From that point forward, the Gilberts paid for her medical care and made sure she received an education. It took another legal battle that dragged on for many years to receive clearance for your adoption.” He rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face. “That’s it, in terms of a paper trail, though it feels like we’re still missing something.”
“It does.” Annalee shivered. “In the meantime, I have a mentally unstable sister on the war path for being institutionalized most of her life, and she wants somebody to pay.”
Tucker exchanged a troubled look with Hawk. “Not just somebody.”
No, not just somebody. He was right about that.
She’s taking her wrath out on me and everyone I care about.
Which meant the nightmare she and her family had been living in wasn’t even close to being over. It was just beginning.